Harry Potter - The Gamer
by Luna's Meow
Summary: Another "The Gamer" crossover, but they don't have that section to create yet. Life is a video game, but Death is after Harry. With no save points, so real consequences if he dies, can Harry manage to make it through his game life? Slow updates, like my other story. Military life interferes sometimes. Might become more than Lunar Harmony... not by much if it does. The OC is Death.
1. Prologue

Stupid formatting...

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><p>Harry Potter and the New Game+<br>Prologue

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><p>Harry Potter was dead. After defeating Voldemort, marrying Ginny, and having several children he died by complete accident. He apparated. Apparition is a powerful tool, despite being horribly named. You envision a place you've been and instantly teleport there. However there is one small problem with teleportation. What happens if the place you're going is occupied?<p>

Someone had built a new store in Diagon Alley. The small alleyway that had once been empty was now a wand store that was trying to compete with Ollivander. He apparated in the same spot that was now occupied by a shelf containing several wands.

Splinching wasn't new. Saint Mungo's was able to handle that no problem. It happened all the time, even with experienced practitioners. This was because of the same problem Harry experienced. Teleporting into a space that was currently occupied by something, or _someone_ else. It caused your body to literally fuse with the item in question. Unfortunately, Harry happened to fuse with several new, experimental wands. Magical items were difficult enough to remove, but experimental ones? Unstable ones? They tried their best, but there was nothing they could do. All they could do was block the pain, and buy enough time for his family to say goodbye. Ginny arrived, said her goodbyes, tears in her eyes for even though they'd fought like cats and dogs over the years, she did love Harry Potter. Ron and Hermione were there as well, Hermione crying just as much as Ginny. Harry's children and their children (now fully grown) saw off their famous father/godfather, and Harry passed.

That's when the strangeness happened.


	2. Chapter 1

Stupid formatting...

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><p>Chapter One<br>Master of Death

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><p>He was in a room. It was pitch black, with a slight green glow. It was… strangely comforting. Realizing that he was flat on his back he sat up and saw a young woman sitting at a stone circular table in the centre of the room.<p>

The woman was dressed in a purple sleeveless dress, and a silver choker around her neck, from which hang a glowing green jewel. The jewel was engraved in silver with the symbol of the Hallows. Her hair was as black as the night, her skin a dusky tanned white.

"Hello again, master." She said. Her eyes were narrowed slightly, and her voice held thinly veiled anger.

Completely confused Harry stands up, and starts walking forward. The table is also engraved with the symbol of the deathly Hallows. They glowed the green of the killing curse, the same colour his eyes were often compared to, despite them not being such a glowing, sickly, evil looking green. The woman is oddly… familiar. He _knows_ her somehow. All the same, he is sure that he has never met her in his life.

"I suppose this means I'm dead? I remember being in the hospital, and the symbols there," he says. "Wait…" he pauses, his mind catching up with what he heard. "Hello _again_? _Master_? Who are you?"

The woman's eyes widen, having come to a realization. "You don't… remember? I had thought it just an act during your time there but-" a vicious smile crosses her face and her voice becomes devious and drips with sarcasm. "Then this is my chance. Sorry _master_ but I'm not going to pass this one up. Back you go! Do try to put forth your best effort this time, unless you wish death to go wild again. Buh-bye!"

And with that, everything went dark once more.

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><p>The next thing Harry knew, he was in a dark warm place. He couldn't move though. He felt safe for some reason. There was a comforting steady pounding in his ear. It was weeks before he realized that he was back in his mother's womb.<p>

It happened suddenly. Memories slammed into his brain. They were fragmented however. Fragmented, just not in the usual manner that people think of. There weren't any missing memories chronologically, but they lacked the experience and details that should have come along with them. They were knowledge, pure knowledge, and some emotion… they were empty of all else. It was like comparing actually riding a bike, to reading about riding one. Or a picture of a beautiful place to actually being there. Even if the quality of the picture was perfect, it still wasn't quite the same. Still, information is a power all its own, and even if the picture hadn't been perfect in quality, if it had instead been grainy, and in black-and-white, that would be better than never seeing the place at all right?

Harry was the Master of Death. The woman in the afterlife? Eris. She was his exarch. His godly servant. A previous Death before he had taken over. He had come into this world for a purpose. To save it. Voldemort was going to destroy the entire world, and even Death wanted Life to go on. After all, if everything died, there would be nothing left for him to do. Only Life kept Death around. Something had gone wrong however. The memories should have returned as soon as he died and arrived in his personal chambers in the realm of the Gods, his personal "Land of the Dead". What could possibly have happened? Well, considering he was still in the womb, he had a few months to figure out the answer.

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><p>Harry made good use of his time in the womb. He didn't have a true answer yet, not even a theory really, but he had a hypothesis. He had died before he should have. Died to destroy the horcrux that Voldemort had placed inside him. That first death was unplanned. His memories had probably tried to enter him then, but he had been restored to life too soon. So the memories had escaped the container where they were held previously, and had nowhere to go. They simply drifted along the edges of Reality and The Potentiate until he died again, degrading since they were not properly contained. Then he'd died again. Degraded, the memories took longer to find him. They'd only just found him when he was slammed back into life prematurely by his traitorous servant. This time they'd somehow managed to get through the barrier between worlds, probably because she hadn't realized the need to cast the containment spell on them again. Then, they'd located his current body and seeped into him. Lucky for him, or he'd have no idea where he was, let alone why. He probably would have gone insane from sensory deprivation without his memories to occupy his thoughts.<p>

Harry's knowledge was going to save him this time around. If he didn't play this life just right, and succeed in everything his assistant assigned him… Since she was the one to send him here, the rules said that she got to dictate the terms of his success. If he failed, he would no longer be Death. He'd either be both downgraded to exarch and forced to serve her, or more likely he would be utterly destroyed as he'd dethroned her once before. However his knowledge was also a problem. In this world the human body was only capable of containing _one_ of the Greater Powers at a time. Two at most, and that was a stretch. It could hold lesser powers unending, though conflicting powers could (and usually did) have bad side-effects, up to and including various types of death or insanity. He'd have to choose one before he "popped out" so to speak. That would be difficult. Both the choosing, and the event. He really didn't want to remember sliding out of his mother's bloody and over-expanded vagina. Sometimes being a God really sucked.

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><p>It was time. He'd been able to kick for months, and though he knew it hurt her sometimes, he'd done it periodically as he just HAD to adjust his position for comfort, and with arms this weak, he couldn't really be expected to swim with those. Kicking gave him more propulsion than anything else. Besides that, kicking was expected. If he didn't kick, his parents would think something was wrong and go to St. Mungo's where they could be exposed to Voldemort. Prophecy wasn't his godly domain, and in his previous life he'd never actually asked the exact date of <em>when<em> the prophecy was given, so he didn't know if his parents were already in hiding or not, if they'd hid during the pregnancy, or only after, let alone the difficulty of actually telling time in a place that was the same at all times. No matter what, his parents going to St. Mungo's could leave them exposed and get them killed before he was even born. Definitely _not_ a good thing. If Eris was allowed to become Death again, especially _the_ Death considering that he had the powers of every Death in this plane… Chaos would reign. Again.

Harry's mind was wandering again. It was time to choose. Which of his many powers would benefit him the most? It had to be something small, at least to start with. Something that would make him _work_ for his power. If he gave himself an instant "I win" power, he'd be erased from the universe for breaking the fabric of reality. The Overgod of this realm, a mysterious entity that went by the name No, (pronounced En-oh) wouldn't tolerate uber-powerful reality warping abilities. It took him a while to find the right one, but of all of his viable options, in the end it was the only logical choice to make. It would mean taking two greater powers, but they were so intrinsically linked, that they almost counted as one, and thus would be allowed.

A Gamer's Body (Passive) – Grants a body that allows the user to live the real world like a game.  
>A Gamer's Mind (Passive) – Allows a user to calmly and logically think things through. Allows peaceful state of mind. Immunity to psychological status effects.<p>

The powers might seem ridiculously stupid and weak, but they had a hidden power. The ability to become the best, the absolute greatest possible, in any, and more importantly, _every_ facet of life at an enhanced speed. They were only level 1 for now, having just acquired them, but he couldn't do anything until his body matured more anyway. By the time he was physically old enough to take actions of his own, they would be maxed out. Which was important. "Psychological status effects" included magic. Immunity to charm or domination spells like the imperious curse and its weaker cousins? Very useful.

These powers weren't normally used. They were so close to breaking the fabric of reality that they were considered cheating. Not by the rulebook, but by the players. Gods were normally "forbidden" from using them when they played the "Game of Life" and took on a mortal form or created a divine avatar. But he hadn't chosen to play this again. He'd been pushed in by his rebellious subordinate when he didn't know what was going on. That would be enough of a loophole to get away with it. Even then, the only thing that made them "barely legal" was that he still could "lose" or "die" with these powers. They allowed one to become impossibly strong, but it took _effort_ to make it happen. They only granted the potential. Especially since the "game" that the power allowed you to play would vary depending on your favourite type. Lucky for Harry, his favourite type of game was one designed to make mortals powerful enough to challenge and defeat gods. After all, slaying Gods was what epic level D&D (especially homebrew) was all about. Unfortunately, since he hadn't set this up, it wasn't going to go by D&D altogether. Rather the stat system would, but the skills and such would go by its natural state. That meant grinding. He hated grinding.

Still, the powers Harry had chosen were powerful enough that he would be forced to give up most of his memories as a God to compensate. He'd only be able to keep a few, and even then, they'd likely stay hidden from him until something happened to jog his memory. Not just his memories as a god either, but also the memories of his previous go around through this life would be taken. Some would likely remain, but much like those of his God-self, they would need to be "jogged" before they would return. Still, it would be a small price to pay to save all of Life in this plane of existence. This plane was different from the others after all. Instead of just having one world in the Prime Material, there were hundreds of thousands of millions. It was almost an entire multiverse all on its own! Back on topic, at least Harry could be sure that he would be able to figure out how to play. The tutorial would be on by default, and he wouldn't remember how to turn it off when his memories left him. Not before he'd gone through it. But the time for thinking was over. Pressure, then light. Then oblivion as his memories were wiped away.

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><p>It was several years before the first notifications popped up.<p>

Abilities: Abilities are things that you can do. They are not to be confused with Skills. They are separated as things that not everyone can simply learn through effort. Some people can, but they require a user to be of the correct class, race, or have innate talent. They have levels, but no ranks. Passive abilities utilize no mana, and have a constant effect. Active abilities utilize mana when active. Some abilities are passive, but can be activated for a mana cost to increase effectiveness.

A Gamer's Mind (Passive) Lv Max. – At max level, allows the spontaneous creation of new skills for use from the imagination as long as the pre-requisite skills to create them are obtained and at the required level. Note: Training under a master can still grant new skills, but is no longer required. Window screens are now active.

A Gamer's Body (Passive) Lv Max. – At max level, allows the spontaneous creation of new physical skills from repeated actions. Note: Training under a master can still grant new skills, but is no longer required. HP/MP bars and stats of the user are now visible. Food and sleep are no longer physical requirements, but instead have beneficial effects when utilized. Also, due to the body acting like that of a character in a video game, skills will not degrade over time from disuse as they normally would. This allows mastery of multiple skills to become not only possible, but almost easy with enough time.

Status Effects: Status Effects are what cause changes to your body, mind, abilities, etc. Certain effects can take priority over others. They can be negative, neutral, or positive. Permanent and semi-permanent effects take great difficulty to add or remove.

Bad Night's Sleep – Due to sleeping in sub-par conditions, your health and mana have only been restored by 50%.

Malnutrition – Due to poor nutrition your body is 50% weaker than it should be. All stats are decreased by 50%. Skills that are affected by stats are also decreased by 50%. Note: The longer this condition persists, the more difficult it will be to remove. If the condition is not repaired prior to completing puberty, it will become a permanent malady, only able to be removed through a miracle cast by a high-level cleric, or a miracle-class healing spell or item. Does not affect mana.

Exhaustion – Due to remaining under the effects of Malnutrition and Bad Night's Sleep for more than two months you have a constant stat penalty of 25%. All efforts are also 25% more difficult in every aspect of life.

Body Support – Due to severe intensity of Malnutrition and Bad Night's Sleep, 50% of your mana is constantly drained to keep you alive. Note: If you allow yourself to fall under 50% mana, you will die. This effect can only be removed by removing the two effects that caused its creation. They must be remain removed for at least six months. If they return during that period, the timer resets.

Invasion of the Soul – Due to the presence of another soul in your body, 25% of your mana is constantly drained to protect your body from being taken over. Note: If you fall under 25% mana, you will become fully "possessed" and lose control of your body. Due to also needing 50% of your mana for Body Support, falling under 75% mana will cause your possession as Body Support is a higher ranked priority than Invasion of the Soul. This status effect can only be removed by removing the foreign soul from within you.

Botched Recovery – Due to being forced to heal without proper medical attention, your HP is permanently decreased by 25%. Note: Due to the nature of the injuries, only mystical types of healing can remove this effect.

Skills: Skills are how you perform. Cooking, stealing, crafting, writing, flirting, fighting… all are skills. These can be "discovered" by attempting them for the first time, or in some cases, by watching them be performed by another. They are abilities that anyone can learn through effort, as they require no special class or innate talent. They have levels that are further sub-divided into ranks. You gain 10 skill points per level. These points can be used to increase a skill artificially, without going through the required effort to train it naturally.

Under 25- Novice  
>25-49 – Apprentice<br>50-74 – Journeyman  
>75-99 – Master<br>100 – Grandmaster  
>101+ – Divine – Only useful against another Grandmaster or higher of the opposing skill. These are rumoured to be the ranks of Gods.<p>

Cooking (Passive) Lv 25 – Allows the user to cook various meals. At max level, learning to cook new meals is easier due to innate cooking talent, and the user has a 10% chance to learn how to create a food by simply tasting it. The user can also make meals from random ingredients provided they are physically possible to create from said ingredients. At this level the user can become a cook at a restaurant. Note: When mixed with Charisma, the user may cause potential mates to become somewhat attracted to them through cooking talents alone, due to the scarcity of men who can cook. Combined levels must equal 50 or higher with a minimum of 20 in both.

Dishwashing (Passive) Lv 25 – Allows faster washing of dishes. At max level, allows removal of all stains, greases, and food remains with a single swipe. At this level the user can become an experienced dishwasher at a restaurant.

Gardening (Passive) Lv 25 – Allows faster weeding, planting, and all other gardening skills. At max level, the user is capable of growing hybrid plants perfectly to allow plants to grow in climates not meant for them or to create plants with new effects. At this level, the user can join a decent landscaping crew.

Mastery of Pain (Passive) Lv Max – Allows the user to limit the effects of pain, as well as remain able to think clearly and act even during cases of severe bodily harm as long as the body is physically capable of doing so. Note: Mental and Magical exhaustion are not affected.

Endurance (Physical) Lv 12 – Allows the user to perform physical activities for longer durations before become physically exhausted. Note: At this level, only running is affected.

Run Like the Wind Lv 25 – Allows the user to run at enhanced speeds. Note: At this level, Agility *2 when attempting to flee, or if other special conditions exist. At max level Agility *8 when running, and all special conditions are waived.

Wandless Magic Lv 5 – Allows the user to utilize magic without a focus. At Max level, the user becomes one with the magic inside them and the need for a focus is removed completely. Note: At level 25 and up, this ability becomes wilfully controlled. At levels under 25, when the user is under great stress, magic may accidentally be used; usually to affect that which is causing said stress. At levels under 15, magic may also randomly occur even without stress. This skill may be increased above level 24 only through specialized training, or some other method of gaining knowledge in this ability. The use of Skill Points is not an exception to this rule. At levels under 15, the use of magic, even with a focus will grant experience in this ability. Therefore, training in magic with a focus will cause this ability to reach a point where it no longer occurs accidentally without great stress. Even then, if the user is under stress enough to utilize wandless magic and increase its level to 24 it will stop gaining experience altogether until a proper trainer is found. Wandless magics cast without finding a proper trainer (ex: Apparition) can also increase the level of this Skill up to 24.

Apparition Lv 1 – Allows the user to teleport to any known destination instantaneously through magic. At this level range is limited to line-of-sight, and splinching is highly likely. Also, the rate of successful apparition (whether splinching occurs or not) is less than .05%. At Apprentice level, risk of splinching is reduced to 15%. At Journeyman level, risk of splinching is reduced to 0% unless the user is surprised or unable to concentrate for some other reason, and the user can teleport through Anti-Apparition wards unless the wards are cast by a ward maker of equal or higher level. At max level, the user can teleport world-wide, and splinching is impossible.

When the windows showed up, Harry was confused. At first. Then he thought it might be magic. He'd gone to a place called Diagon Alley a few days before with a half-giant named Hagrid. Anything was possible now. While sitting in his "room" manipulating the windows and looking through the "menu" to learn more about his ability, a memory came loose and he remembered that at some point he had somehow "chosen" this ability even if he couldn't really remember how it worked. Still, the memory of choosing it at least made him understand that it was real, and that meant the warnings he found on the Effects and Skills lists were to be taken seriously. It was with these thoughts in mind that Harry began to prepare for his trip to platform 9¾.


	3. Chapter 2

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><p>Chapter Two<br>Purview of the Gods

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><p>Something important. The view on genetics here in this chapter is in both layman's terms, and in a child's viewpoint. While it isn't all wrong, it isn't all right either. This is hinted at by Harry only gaining ten points in each skill for listening to the "lecture" as told by Neville. Unfortunately, they won't be able to get more information until Hermione does more research during her summer vacation.<p>

As for magic being genetic at all... complain to JKR. She's the one who said so in an interview. She even went so far as to say that all muggle-born are descendants of long lost squibs. None of them are people who spontaneously developed magic on their own. Thus, all mages, pure-blood or not, are the result of a common ancestor. Hence, magic is genetic. In canon. I don't make the rules, I just kept them. Thus, despite what powerful people like Dumbledore think in the books, they are wrong. This is a very good example of characters not being all-knowing. Even the most powerful figures can have the wrong ideas. Get used to this. I don't make characters who are always right, and know everything that they speak for 100% fact. After all, how often in everyday life do we find out that people don't know what they are talking about, despite them seeming to think so?

Racism, or other variants of hatred is *not* supported. I am what is called a "mutt". I literally have every genetic marker for every race on the planet with the only exception being the ones for asian races. I've experienced racism from people of all races, and experienced friendship and kindness from other people of those same races.

In real life, these things are horrible, and no one race has anything "superior" to any other. Magic changes things however. This is a simple "has an ability" vs "does not have an ability" there is literally no downside to having magic, (at least in the HP setting) therefore, having it is "superior" to not having it. As such, it is quite possibly the only elitist view that has a leg to stand on. Unfortunate, considering what the Death Eaters do in its defence.

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><p>The "Game of Life" was one of the greatest distractions that the gods had from their divine duties. Being a god wasn't fun, after all. It took *work* to keep the universe from just falling apart back into the randomness of chaos that it originally sprung forth from. This was why they had exarchs.<p>

An exarch was an ex-god; well, that or a god who was forced to serve another, more powerful god. The one who ran things while you were a player. Usually this person would be whoever was god before you took their power. Now, this only worked out because, quite frankly, most gods were _glad_ to lose their reign. You could only play the game so often, so they had to do your work for only small periods of time. Oh, every once in a while you had the rare being who thought of it as their duty, or even their divine _right_ to be a god, and would be bitter, but that was easily taken care of.

As long as a god made sure to have their new subordinate give the proper Oaths of Binding before they went into their new life, the subordinate couldn't take any of the required actions to de-throne their new boss.

As long as.

Harry had been pushed into a new life before he could do anything like force his assistant to swear her Oaths this time around. It didn't help that she was one of those who saw being a god as her right, not just her duty, and so was working to reclaim her old power the moment he was placed into the mortal realm again.

This was the best show the other gods had seen in epochs! Gossip was rampant, newsletters were sent, and everyone was getting in on things. Especially since Harry had done something no other god in memory had ever succeeded at. He had become a True Deity.

Most Gods weren't what was considered a True Deity. There were many pantheons of gods in the world after all. Many Gods of Death. For the Greeks it was Hades, for the Egyptians, Osiris. Even the Christians/Muslims/Jews had an "Angel of Death" that served their "God". They might have played with the semantics a bit, calling their immortal spiritual beings of power that protected the cosmos a single "God" with "Angels" under him, but it was still the same thing. One mighty spirit who ruled over the lesser spirits. A "King of the Gods" who ruled the other "Gods" As the poet said, a rose by any other name…

Harry wasn't content to just unseat Eris. She had been a goddess of Chaos in her time, but eventually defeated Hades and took over his powers and territory, adding "God of Death" to her list of titles and abilities. Unfortunately, like most "Gods of Death" let alone "Gods of Chaos", Eris was unrepentantly evil. Death was a necessary part of Life, required for the Realms to go on, but an evil god would kill far more than a good one who did so out of duty and necessity rather than personal pleasure. But a Chaotic Evil god… that was even worse. Chaos alone was fine. True Chaos was inherently Neutral after all. By sheer definition chaos had to help good just as much as it did evil, otherwise it wasn't truly chaos. But a being that was Evil, who _used_ Chaos to further its goals, that was dangerous in the extreme. It was what spurred Harry the-once-mortal to fight his way up from being a simple ghost to the highest ranks available and become a divine spirit. He'd torn his way up through the ranks mercilessly, taking the powers of those he defeated, until he'd finally taken on Eris herself.

He hadn't stopped there.

Harry had gone on to defeat every Death God, _in_ _every single pantheon_. Harry was the one, and only God of his domain. For this Realm, at least. It was the reason for his immunity to the killing curse. It had originally bounced off of his body and destroyed the one who dared to use the power of death on Death himself. The only reason the second curse had worked was because at that point Voldemort had Harry's blood within him, giving him minimal access to the powers of Death as well.

But Voldemort was a fake. A copy running around with a slight connection while Harry was the real thing. So, in the end, Voldemort was true to his name, and fled before the power of Death. Not that it saved him.

But all this was common knowledge. Right now the gods were looking over the records of Harry's previous life, seeing what they could of his personality when he didn't have his god-powers and divine knowledge. Gods changed after all, when they didn't have the weight of their Realms on their shoulders, and bets were being made.

So the gods watched.

The watched as Harry learned the hard way that love wasn't enough.

That as much as he and the mortal known as Ginevra Weasley cared for one another, and they truly did, they were too different to have a happy life-long relationship together. Harry wanted to retire and live a quiet life. "Ginny" wanted fame, either as the wife of the Saviour, or as a professional quidditch player. Either way, quiet and out of sight wasn't for her. She wanted the very fame Harry detested, and everything that came with it.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be rich, famous, and adored by everyone. It just didn't work for Harry. Unfortunately, it was a very basic thing tied to their personalities. That meant that it wasn't just a bad habit, something that you could just compromise on easily. So they'd fought. Fought like cats and dogs for years. Honestly, if it weren't for the children they'd probably have divorced long before he died, love or no love.

The gods watched as he learned that friends weren't perfect, and neither was he.

Harry often turned to Hermione for help when he and Ginny fought. He could have talked to Ron, but Ron was Ginny's brother. Harry didn't want to put Ron between his best friend and his sister, that wouldn't be fair. Besides, Ron had grown up in the same circumstances Ginny had. He hungered for wealth and attention as much as she did. Which, considering how poor they were growing up, and how many brothers they had, diverting attention from themselves, (and the twins behaviour hadn't helped) their need for attention was understandable.

No, Hermione was the best person for him to turn to when he and Ginny had a fight. Hermione was his friend, someone he could trust to keep what they discussed to herself, even from their other friends. She was also a girl, so she could help him figure out how to apologise without accidentally saying something stupid and causing another argument. She came from a small family, so she understood him not having a need for attention, although his reasons had been different, (attention in his life meant pain and/or punishment) and she wasn't poor growing up so she also didn't have a need to be as wealthy as possible. That was what caused the problems.

It had been an accident. At least at first.

Hermione would comfort Harry about Ginny and her need for adulation, while he would comfort her about Ron and his belittling muggles and their technology, her ideas of studying magic with the logic of the scientific method, (something the twins did without realising, which was why they were so good at inventing new things) or even his lack of understanding of why she felt a need to work and not just be a "proper housewife" like his mother. Usually one would comfort the other, and give them advice. Sooner or later they were bound to happen to need help on the same day.

The gods watched as Harry learned the love could hurt as much as it helped.

Harry and Hermione eventually slipped beyond the limits of friendship. After one too many times of being mutually hurt by their significant others and finding comfort in each other, it was only natural that they'd cross the line. The problem was that it hadn't been just sex. They were too close for that. Harry and Hermione had _made love_. Both of them had been naïve at first. They'd assumed that you could only truly make love to your husband or wife, (provided you actually loved them of course) and at first were afraid that they no longer loved their respective spouses. It wasn't until later that they learned the truth. That love didn't have to be limited to just one person, just one partner. That these ideas really were a cultural thing that humans had invented.

Oh, they had heard the words before. Who hadn't? But most people would say that those were lies told by others to assuage their guilt at cheating on their spouse. Then again most people didn't have one person they could make love to and mean it, while still being able to go home a do the same with their spouse. Most people couldn't love one and still love the other. They limited themselves due to their upbringings.

So the sex had continued. They went from making a one-time "mistake", to eventually having a full on, hidden secondary relationship with each other. Honestly, it had probably actually saved their marriages. Ron and Ginny had never found out, and neither had anyone else. Thankfully magical contraception was better than the muggle variety. They never had to worry about accidental pregnancy.

All of this was important to the gods. After all, when you look at all the various creation myths of the world, most religions say that humanity was somehow made in their image. Did it never occur to people that the term "image" could be more than physical? That we were like the gods on a spiritual and mental "image" as well? Just like humans had their obsessions with "pairings" in their favourite movies, books, videogames, and other entertainment; so did the gods in their one and only escape from their burdens.

Parings were a huge component in the "Game of Life". The hordes of humans in the Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston scandal craze was _nothing_ compared to how bad it got in the higher planes. Oh, there were other bets to be taken of course. But _none_ had the rewards of the pairing bets. This was like Fantasy Football for them. Really, the gods were just as lustful, greedy, lazy, hateful, envious, proud and dishonest as the worst of humans. They just also happened to be as chaste, giving, diligent, kind, patient, humble, and honest as the best of them. The only question was what mood were they in when you managed to get their attention. That explained a lot of things, when you thought about it.

So the bets were on. Some bet on Harry/Hermione, others on Harry/Ginny, some on a "threesome route," others on a harem, and still others on completely different pairings altogether. Of course, the various gods of love and time were forbidden to bet without giving their Oaths that they wouldn't interfere, or use their "profile sense" to look ahead to see the result. Still, there were other gods; and not all of them were above cheating.

* * *

><p>After his shopping trip Harry still had a lot of time before he actually was supposed to go to the magical school. With no one to ask about his strange new ability he had a lot to figure out for himself. Skills were easy, just by cooking breakfast for the Dursleys that morning he learned that his skills increased every time he used them. The thing that caught him by surprise was the tutorial.<p>

It had started like any other morning. Harry was told to make breakfast, and given specific instructions on what to make. Once he finished cooking the first thing though, the "quest in progress" window had opened up, showing what he had completed, and what he had left. He had been so surprised that the first batch of food was unsuccessful. When he burned the French toast, he expected Vernon to yell and possibly hit him. Instead, he simply got a "mission failed" message and had to restart the quest. In fact, the Dursleys were completely frozen. Not just them either. The entire house, including the clocks were all stopped as if time itself had frozen. Harry had tried to leave the house to see if other things were affected, but there was some sort of invisible wall or force field stopping him from going outside. Still, the house being frozen gave Harry an opportunity to do things he'd never thought of before.

Since the ingredients for the overly large Dursley breakfast simply re-spawned after his first failure, Harry was able to cook what he wanted for breakfast and eat the first full meal of his life. Pancakes, toast with butter and jam, a ham and cheese omelette with all the sides, homemade fruit cocktail… He'd never been so satisfied after a meal in his entire stay with his "family". Unfortunately, he'd been starved for far too long to eat everything he'd cooked. His stomach had shrunk from not being properly filled so he was left with a lot of food that he just couldn't eat no matter how much he wanted to. That was when he discovered his inventory.

Apparently the game that Harry's life was modelled on didn't care about carry weight, or encumbrance from size unless the object was in his hands. He had an inventory that functioned almost like a dimensional pocket, and as far as he could tell, was infinite. There was no number system limiting his inventory "slots" nor was there a maximum carry weight, or spacial limit. So Harry cooked all the breakfast foods he ever wanted and put everything inside it. From his experience in watching Dudley, most games didn't have any sort of timer that made food items "go bad" once you obtained them. A steak bought in the beginning of the game was just as usable if you saved it until the final boss. And since everything he'd seen seemed similar to a game, he was willing to bet that his inventory functioned the same way.

* * *

><p>Harry was sitting on the train, unsure of the details of his memories. There had been several people that Harry had seen that had caused various memories and feelings to pop free from his mind. The red-haired girl, Ginny. Harry remembered her. Harry remembered loving and hating her all at the same time. The reasons why though, were beyond him. Her brother, Ron, had tried to sit with him. Harry remembered him too. He was a friend, but there were feelings of betrayal also mixed in. Some on his end, some on Ron's. The memories of both had come too fast to make any sense of them. He didn't know how, why, or what the memories were about. All he was left with were vague impressions, and he wasn't taking any chances.<p>

If he had betrayed the boy who apparently had been his friend, there must have been a reason. The same for loving and hating his sister all at once. And there was betrayal on his end with her too. But Harry knew himself. He wouldn't have done anything unless they had done something first. The feeling of betrayal he got from the boy reinforced that. So obviously staying away from them would be the best idea.

Then came two others. Neville, a boy who he remembered as a friend and ally, and a girl, Hermione. He remembered loving her, and feeling guilty for loving her, but she wasn't associated with anything else that was bad. Why would he feel guilty for loving someone? Was it because of Ginny? He didn't know. But he did remember that he could trust her. With anything, more than his life even.

The whole situation was a mess. Harry didn't remember events, he remembered feelings. Remembering feelings. It wasn't even a good description really. He didn't _feel_ the feelings, he just… _remembered_ feeling them. Like an echo.

This wasn't the first time he'd gotten these "echoes" and they were never wrong, which explained why he trusted them and why he wasn't freaking out right now. He'd had them all his life. Not to mention a higher sense of déjà vu than most. Harry didn't know how, or why, but his best guess was that he'd been reincarnated somehow; and even more strangely, reincarnated into his same body and lifetime as before rather than a new one. Either that, or with the same people instead of different ones, unlike the Indian belief system.

Either way, Harry had politely rebuffed Ron in his efforts to join him in his cabin. He didn't want to be around someone who had betrayed him and who he had in turn betrayed until he knew more about _why_ everything had happened, and he certainly wasn't at a high enough level to take risks. He needed to get a huge increase in his stats and skills before he could try anything risky and… Right. There was that new skill he'd gotten when he was looking around at everyone on the platform. He hadn't just been looking around as usual, he had been actively seeing what he could learn from what he saw, trying to draw conclusions from simple observations. That had made a new skill pop up on his list.

Mentally Harry gave the command. 'Observe,' and his vision filled with a box containing information on the two people he was sharing his compartment with. Another window showed a breakdown of stats and their properties.

Name: Neville Longbottom  
>Race: Human<br>Level: 1  
>Class: Novice Wizard (Sorcerer?)<br>Title: (Hidden)  
>Relationship: (Hidden)<br>Str: 10  
>Dex: 13<br>Con: 12  
>Int: 8<br>Wis: 12  
>Cha: 6<br>HP: (Hidden)  
>Bio: (Hidden)<br>(Hidden): (Hidden)

Name: Hermione Jean Granger  
>Race: Human<br>Level: 1  
>Class: Novice Witch (Sorceress?)<br>Title: (Hidden)  
>Relationship: (Hidden)<br>Str: 7  
>Dex: 10<br>Con: 10  
>Int: 15<br>Wis: 6  
>Cha: 6<br>HP: (Hidden)  
>Bio: (Hidden)<br>(Hidden): (Hidden)

This had caused new windows to pop open for him as well.

Overview on Stats: Statistics are a numerical value given to various properties of a character. This numerical system can tell you how powerful you are in a given area compared to another being. 10 is the average number for an adult human in any stat.

Str: Strength measures your character's muscle and physical power. This ability is especially important for fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and monks because it helps them prevail in combat. Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.

Dex: Dexterity measures hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, and balance. This ability is the most important ability for rogues, but it's also high on the list for characters who typically wear light or medium armour (rangers and barbarians) or no armour at all (monks, wizards, and sorcerers), and for anyone who wants to be a skilled archer.

Con: Constitution represents your character's health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character's hit points, so the ability is important for all classes.

Int: Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons. This ability is important for wizards because it affects how many spells they can cast, how hard their spells are to resist, and how powerful their spells can be. It's also important for any character who wants to have a wide assortment of skills.

Wis: Wisdom describes a character's willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition. While Intelligence represents one's ability to analyse information, Wisdom represents being in tune with and aware of one's surroundings. An "absentminded professor" has low Wisdom and high Intelligence. A simpleton (low Intelligence) might still have great insight (high Wisdom). Wisdom is the most important ability for clerics, sorcerers, and druids, and it is also important for paladins and rangers. If you want your character to have acute senses, put a high score in Wisdom. Every creature has a Wisdom score.

Cha: Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and has a direct synergy with their physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting. As such, an evil person can have a high Charisma score, they just exude an evil aura instead the good aura that a hero would have. Charisma is most important for paladins and bards. It is also important for clerics, since it affects their ability to turn undead. Every creature has a Charisma score.

On a whim Harry called up his own stat sheet.

Name: Harry James Potter  
>Race: Human<br>Level: 1  
>Class: Novice Wizard (Sorcerer?)<br>Title: The-Boy-Who-Lived a.k.a. (Hidden) a.k.a. (Hidden)  
>Relationship: NA – Player Character  
>Str: 8(24)<br>Dex: 8(24)  
>Con: 2(8)<br>Int: 6  
>Wis: 14<br>Cha: 6  
>HP: 11(15)<br>Bio: N/A – Player Character  
>(Hidden): (Hidden)<p>

That was strange. The (Hidden) must mean that there was more information to be learned? Harry probably needed to level up the skill before it would show him more than names, levels, stats, and classes then.

Harry's own stats were damn good though. His strength and dexterity being high was understandable. He had Body Support and Invasion of the Soul weakening him by 75%. He still needed to do his chores and run from Dudley though; and that wasn't even counting the punishment his body learned to endure from the beatings Vernon gave him. He must have increased his stats while growing up just from pure physical conditioning. But since the negative effects on him took a percentage of his ability away from him, all increases he gained while under them added to his actual score in multiples! It wouldn't help until he managed to get rid of both of those negative modifiers but at least he had an edge for once he did. Honestly, it would be better for him if he kept them on as long as possible, and to try and keep raising those stats in particular, so that when he removed them he got the biggest increase possible for his trouble.

Harry's mental stats didn't seem affected at all though. Probably due to the body naturally diverting nutrients to his brain as the most important organ in his body. Even an idiot could figure that out. That meant that while he had a nice "cheat" for his physical stats, he didn't have any such thing for his mental ones. With an internal sigh, Harry dismissed the information windows. Honestly, he was lucky that Dudley was a sadistic bastard for once.

If Dudley hadn't wanted to torment Harry by making him watch him play his videogames, Harry wouldn't know anything about what he was experiencing. Dudley always did like taunting Harry. Putting something Harry could never use right in front of him, forcing him to see how much fun he could have if only he were allowed to play… For once it was actually useful.

Harry could only imagine how surprised he would have been if he had opened his schoolbooks for the first time without ever having seen how a skill book was used in a videogame. He'd opened his charms book and immediately learned the levitation charm, the light charm, and several other spells. Luckily it appeared that while his life was a game, the real world still had some effects on how the game played out, because he would have had a hard time explaining why he didn't have his books for class if it had disappeared like skill books do in games.

Harry's ability seemed to have odd quirks to it. So far it seemed like items that he "used" would only disappear if they had been created by his ability in the first place. He had caught a mouse with the mousetrap and gained a "rat tail" item. Listed as an item that could be used in cooking or alchemy, and the details said that it was a delicacy in certain countries.

One of the times the Dursleys had denied Harry food, he "used" the rat tail as an item. It disappeared and immediately he gained some HP. Thankfully he hadn't had to literally "eat" the item in question. He knew he could, having eaten worse before when he was starving, but that didn't mean he liked the taste.

Well, Harry had wasted enough time doing nothing. He'd better get to making friends with the people he shared his compartment with. There was no point knowing he could trust them if he didn't bother actually talking to them at all.

* * *

><p>Hermione was… strange. For someone who had only just gotten introduced to the magical world she had an awful lot of opinions. Thankfully Neville was there to explain some of the things she had no idea (or the wrong idea!) about. Like family houses, school houses, and why being a pure-blood vs a muggleborn was better.<p>

That last bit had only even come up because of one Draco Malfoy. Harry didn't remember any details about him either, but he definitely remembered that he was an untrustworthy asshole who he wouldn't mind killing if the feeling of intense rage at the mere sight of his face was anything to go by. That was shocking to him. He hadn't even wanted to kill Dudley, outside of his normal moments of rage after one of Dudley's "pranks". Too feel that strongly about someone he'd never met must mean that this guy was beyond saving.

Draco had walked in, insulted Harry's choice of cabin mates, (a near-squib and a mud-blood) and then actually tried to get him to join him in some kind of friendship between their "houses". Even without the echoes of emotion and memory warning him of Draco's character Harry wouldn't have responded well to anyone acting like that, but with it? Harry had immediately turned him down, and said that he could find his own friends just fine. What ensued was a discussion that should not have even been necessary. A discussion on the facts of life and how it didn't care about what was fair, just what was true. Something children normally wouldn't even know. Thankfully, the children here weren't very normal.

Hermione was the type of child that read every book she could get her hands on, Neville was the wizarding equivalent of a botanist, and so actually knew quite a bit about breeding and genetics, and Harry… well, he actually didn't have anything to add to that part conversation, not knowing anything on the subject but he had plenty of things to add about the "unfair, uncaring universe" that didn't give a damn about making things equal for everyone.

Life wasn't a children's story, everyone wasn't "born equal" and people did indeed have inherent genetic advantages and disadvantages. Harry's own life was a testament to how "unfair" life could be. There he was, an innocent child, yet he was raised in an abusive household, one that abused him not for something he did, but because of something he _was_. Something he had no control over, couldn't stop, and didn't even know about! He didn't even have the privilege of knowing _why_ he was being abused until a perfect stranger came up and told him.

Did people honestly think that the same universe that could be so uncaring to an innocent child would, or even _could_ suddenly care enough to take the time to give everyone an "equal shot" at things in life? To make sure that no one person was inherently any better than another by virtue of their genes, something they hadn't earned? How foolish. How wilfully ignorant. The people born with mental and physical disabilities must just not exist for such people. Children's books, priests, parents, and Disney movies may lie, but life does not. Life is, and always has been a cold, uncaring, fight for survival. The strong preyed upon the weak, and the weak suffered or adapted until they either became strong enough to replace their oppressor, or they died. Call it cynical if you like, it was still truth no matter what; and Harry preferred truth to kind sounding lies.

Truth was a hard thing. That was what life had taught Harry. So it was no surprise that even though he was not a "blood purist" he did have the sense to realise that there was one fact that was inescapable. It was simple. If you bred two dogs with white fur together, and their grandparents all had white fur, you expected the puppies to come out with white fur. If you bred two dogs with different coloured fur together, you didn't know what you were going to get. This was common sense. If you bred two dogs together, and they both had white fur, but the grandparents of one of the dogs had brown fur, you weren't surprised if a few puppies came out with brown fur. This was the same with people.

If two brown haired people had a child, and it came out with red hair, they would immediately look to their nearest relatives, for example the grandparents, or great-grandparents. If one of them had red hair, then there was no question. It was simply a "throw-back" the hair had "skipped" a generation. It was only if there were no known family members with red hair that the man would need a test to verify that the child was his and not the product of a cheating wife. This was common knowledge among all people. You didn't need to study genetics for a living to understand these simple facts. Why then did people think that magic worked differently?

If you have two people who have magic, and they have a child, that child is more likely to come out magical than for the child of a magical person and a muggle. If two magical people had children together, and one of them had muggle parents, there was always the possibility that the muggle genes would show up in their child. Where did people think squibs came from? They were quite obviously "throw-backs" to a muggle ancestor. Like how some humans are still to this day born with "tails" as a throwback to our primate ancestors. The more magical people you had in your ancestry, the higher the chance that the muggle gene was not hiding in you somewhere, waiting for a chance to express itself. This was where the pure-blood mentality had originally come from.

Magical people were afraid that their children would be born without their fantastic powers. Worse, their powers granted them a longer life-span, and if their child was born without it, they would die old and decrepit in a mere few decades, while their parents and any magical siblings they might have would still be young. This fear over time had been warped into an irrational hatred and extraneous despicable rumours that had no truth to them. That was Neville's theory anyway.

Neville had happened upon the idea when he was learning about breeding plants together. The art of mixing two plants to get a new breed with the beneficial traits of both, but without any of the negative traits you didn't want from either. It was the earliest complex science known to man, although the mechanisms of how it worked were beyond them until they found DNA. The knowledge was there, just not knowledge of the mechanisms.

Breeding of plants, animals, and people was the same all around. Genes didn't act any differently no matter where you looked. And when you considered that magical people were far fewer in number than muggles, it stood to reason that whatever genes made people magical were either recessive to muggle genes, or were somehow less likely to be activated. Therefore, the only way to ensure that your child could live what magical parents considered a "long and happy life" they had to be as careful as possible in choosing a partner; no different than when trying to breed a quality horse.

The problem was, people aren't like other animals. We don't just breed with anyone whenever we go into heat. We form attachments with other people, never knowing their genetic predispositions beyond the obvious physical signs. So we don't breed optimally. Worse, we save those who are genetically inferior, and do what we can to allow them to "lead a full life" which allows them the chance to breed and pass their bad genes down through the generations. Unlike in nature, where the faulty children would die off before they could breed. Morally, in the short run it was a good thing… But in the long run? It could destroy the entire race. That was a cold hard truth that no one wanted to face.

The best policy, for both short _and_ long term morality, would be to allow those with genetic problems to lead a full life, but to make them sterile so as not to pass their bad genes on to others, rather, have them adopt the many healthy but family-less children that were available. Yet people saw that as immoral. They just didn't understand how genetics actually work, and worse, didn't _want_ to understand. They clung to their ignorance like a shield, and used it to ignore the truths that they didn't want to face. Easier to call those who said such truths "elitists", "racists", "bigots", or other such names. It turned the attention to the other side, forcing them on the defensive, so that they never had to examine their own beliefs, and could continue feeling self-righteous.

Not helping the issue was that the people who actually _were_ elitists, racists, and bigots were saying the same things. Those people took these truths and misused them as justification for their beliefs, and as a way to spread hatred. That didn't make the truths wrong, just their _use_ of them was wrong. They took them and used them against things that weren't problems. Things like skin, hair, & eye colour. Or height. Simple things that weren't defects, but simple diversity. _These_ people were racist, and obviously so. They claimed that things that had no bad effects were "problems" that needed to be eradicated. That just wasn't true.

Unfortunately, the ideals of these racists were so often linked to false propaganda that the real issues were automatically assumed to be propaganda as well, and anyone who spoke on them was quite obviously "one of _those_ people" and was promptly blacklisted and ignored, if not outright scorned. All that did, unfortunately, was cause people to ignore a very real problem, instead of allowing people to get educated on the subject and work towards finding ways of _fixing_ those problems. But people were simple. They didn't take the time to examine these things and separate the truths from the propaganda. They just lumped it all together and hated it equally. The only actual equality in the world was hatred. There was plenty for all, it never ran out.

Thankfully, Hermione was intelligent, and Harry was "a gamer". Hermione, from the various books she had read, knew enough background info to ascertain that Neville probably was right, and if he wasn't, he at least had a good reason for believing as he did. She was going to look into more books of genetics when she got home that summer as a result, especially considering the recent advances in genetic science that had been made after the split between the magical and muggle world. Harry knew this was true for a far simpler reason. After Neville's "lecture" on the subject, he immediately gained a total of 30 points in 3 new skills. "Knowledge – Genetics", "Profession – Breeder", and "Knowledge – Biology".

As a result of these things Neville, instead of being shut out and called a bigot for the facts he brought to bear was instead heard, and asked about possible ways to fix the issue using magic. He replied that he didn't have any; that no one did, but that would be part of his research once he finished school. He was of course intending to use it to help with plant breeding, but if it could also assist with humans, so that magical people didn't have to worry about giving birth to squibs if they had children with muggles or muggle-born mages, or even each other as many simply still had the trait for being a muggle hidden in their line somewhere, then that would probably be one of the biggest steps to solving the hatred that resulted from fear between the pure-bloods and the muggle-born and half-bloods.

For Hermione the experience was important for yet another reason. Most child geniuses stagnate and never make anything of themselves. This is because most mundane problems are beneath their notice, and most of the "big" problems require political power of one kind or another. Something they are not likely to get due to the personality quirks most geniuses have. The same personality quirks that keep them from getting elected into important governmental positions. Hermione had just been given a big problem to solve. One that actually affected her, as it could affect her children should she have any in the future. More importantly, it caused three children to have something interesting to discuss, even if they lacked the knowledge to do so in sophisticated terms, and gave them plenty of time to bond as they shared ideas and sometimes surprising insights.

And so it was, that on the first train ride to his new school in his new life, Harry Potter again made triad of friends. Earlier than the first time to be sure, and not in as dramatic a fashion as it had been the first go 'round, but they were no less destined to be friends from that moment on. And who knew, with Harry's "gamer" ability, they were probably destined to find a way to actually fix the issue as well, rather than simply ignore it, or pretend it didn't exist, as most did.


End file.
